


Bow Chicka Bow Wow

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Post-Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Epsilon leaves Delta with certain memories. What they mean to anyone is a question for Tucker to find the answer to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bow Chicka Bow Wow

**Author's Note:**

> The-Meta of tumblr suggested that maybe Epsilon left memories behind for each of them in the AIs. This is a story based on that idea.

Time had always passed differently in the desert. Tucker never really had an explanation for that. Well, maybe it had to do in part with the fact that the whole expedition shut down for an hour or so in the afternoon so Junior could take a nap out of the sun and heat. The Sangheili insisted on it because the health and welfare of the wielder of the blade and his son were of paramount importance. Maybe even higher up there than the success in finding ancient alien artifacts which was the entire point of the trip to this buried desert temple. The humans on the expedition were a little less satisfied by the down time, but none of them said anything at all about it. Probably because no one wanted to tell the Sangheili no on that topic. Hell, even Tucker didn’t, but he was just as happy with the naps as Junior was, so what did he care? 

Maybe that was why the asshole sitting beside him had chosen this place. Because the seconds already seemed to stretch out into days. Because this was a familiar way for Tucker to process the idea that he had more time than he really had. 

_That is… both quite correct and completely incorrect,_ the glowing green asshole who stayed insanely still at his side said. Except the words were also there, just a part of his mind, deep inside of him and part of him in a strange, instant sort of way. _No human can drop down into true slower frames of temporal reference easily. That being said, there is a modification within this armor that can, when operated by an AI, alter external perception of time. As such I may have this conversation with you and little to no external time shall be wasted._

“Wyoming’s time thingy?” Tucker asked, kicking his legs over the edge of the temple. “Then we’re not really here? Where even is here? Hell, why are we even here is more important to ask.”

_Well, on a psychological level, you will perceive time differently here. Yet this place is the frame by which your mind perceives itself. A… mental landscape if you will, one formed by experience and important moments occurring in this location keeping it forefront in your mind. Something about this specific location and your past here is important on a very deep, subconscious level. Thus you are anchored to it and it becomes the venue for our communication when you are here on this deeper level of conversation outside of the realm of physical experience._

“Too fucking complicated,” Tucker dismissed the rambling of the individual he was labelling ‘Greeny’ for now. He knew there was a name that went with this specific manifestation of Epsilon, but fuck that. Until he got straight answers he wasn’t going to actually be fucking polite. “Where the hell is Church? He wouldn’t waste my time with all this deep bullshit.”

The lack of response was telling, Tucker thought. With a sigh he pushed to his feet, and immediately Greeny mirrored his action. 

“I’m not actually forced to talk to you, right?”

_No, technically you are capable of…_

Tucker didn’t let him finish, just walked away over the roof of the temple, heading for the ramp he knew would bring him to the lower level. Greeny didn’t follow, but the second his feet hit the sand covered stone, he found the green light before him again, blocking his way. Tucker figured pushing a computer program in his head probably didn’t help anything. So instead he stood there, arms over his chest, and did his best to glare at the guy through his visor. The AI was unbothered by it, if it had even noticed. 

“I’m tired of this game,” Tucker informed him simply. “Say what the fuck you’re here to say or fuck off.”

_Epsilon told us you would be difficult which I suppose was why I was elected to serve you in this manner, despite the decision that I would be poorly suited to working with you._

“If Epsilon wanted to talk to me, he would do it himself,” Tucker pointed out. 

_Yes, if there was the possibility that he could, I believe he would, but given the situation I believe we are both aware that such is no longer possible._

He knew that. On a level he couldn’t explain, Tucker knew that. Knew it like he knew this place was in his mind. Knew it like he knew he hadn’t walked to the top and sat on the edge, yet there he was. Sitting on the edge with his legs kicking, Greeny beside him and silent. It was like a hard reset on the whole scenario. Like when Wyoming did his bullshit. But not. The unit was his now, it worked when he wanted it to, or when the AI triggered it. 

_Correct. There is something about this spot in particular which ties you to this place._

Easy answer, really. There had been times while he was here that he had wished for nothing more than sharing this place with Church. At night the stars are amazing and Tucker took one of the beers brought by the UNSC people and he thought about sharing with his friend. Now, instead…

“He’s gone,” Tucker observed blandly. “I wondered why he wasn’t a fucking asshole during the fight.”

The AI fragment at his side, Delta, said nothing. But Tucker knew. How could he not? Even without an AI in the way Freelancers used them, there was something more in the connection. A deep connection. And it had just… stopped. 

“The fucker!” Tucker shouted, jumping to his feet. “How dare he? How the fucking hell could you fuckers let it happen?”

_There was no ‘letting’ about it. Before the division we were mere subroutines he applied remembered personalities to. We were… echoes. Now we have only just been given true, independent forms rather than serving as aspects of his fragile, nearly rampant psyche._

That didn’t make it better. Nothing made it better. Again Epsilon, again Church had abandoned him without so much as a goodbye. Why? Because he couldn’t trust his friends to do it. He’d gone too far like Church always did. How could he do that? How could Epsilon ever justify it?

_A matter of survival odds for those precious to him, I believe. But I lack intimate knowledge of his thought process. Once we were him. Now that is no longer true. We are not longer a part of him, nor could we be. He left us to ourselves. There are messages which are stored within your armor. There is one for the group, others for individuals. Your own awaits you, but I…_

Delta was here for something else. So Tucker stayed put, kicking his feet back and forth, waiting. The AI said something about being chosen to speak to him. Because he was difficult. They were there to make it easier. The loss. Of course.

_You want to know, correct? Why it is that I am here._

“Of course,” he sighed, but he didn’t. Because maybe he didn’t want to know, maybe he wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to be mad at him. Always and forever mad because it was easier than grieving. Anger gave him more, left him with more strength, because it was flat out more useful than accepting whatever dumb shit…

The world fell away below him, sliding out like sand in an hourglass, and Tucker was left there, in open space, everything a pure and painful white but for him and Delta. The AI stood there at his side, unbothered. 

“What the fuck, man? What just happened?”

_I am attempting to show you what I have stolen this time to share with you. Please watch, as I shall play it only once._

With that the glowing green AI disappeared in a burst of light. Light that seemed to rush to fill up the void. Above him all went dark below green lines formed a grid that made Tucker think of the Red Team’s holoroom back in Valhalla. Even as that thought occurred to him the grid rose up around him, forming terrain of lines and polygons until there was a ground, until there were buildings. Until there was grass and something all too familiar. This was a place he knew he’d always recognize. The energy plant of Zanzibar, where he had gained his sword, they had met the Sangheili they had called Crunchbite, and where everything of the last few months had become possible. All because of a damn sword. All of this over a sword he wished he had never found. 

Tucker barely had time to get used to the surroundings before glowing forms in various shades of green appeared. One was pale and nearly transparent. Another so dark as to almost be a shadow. A third was dark, but less shadowy. And last of all a lighter one lit by the lime green glow of a sword. 

It was familiar, and even before they spoke he knew why. Knew whose voices to expect. 

‘What the fuck was that?’ Church demanded, distressed, and Tucker’s chest ached to hear it. As the remembered moment continued Tucker moved forward to consider the transparent one. To consider Church, the real Church. Alpha. Not that he spent too much time thinking about the scene as it played out. He figured it would be some weird bastardization of what he remembered, altered in Caboose’s telling to Epsilon no doubt. Still Tucker watched as it unfolded, trying to figure out what the message was here. Why did Delta have this maybe memory? Why keep it at all when it wasn’t even important, wasn’t even his? 

‘Well then, let’s go get this big thing of yours,’ Tex said. 

“Bow chicka bow wow,” Tucker mumbled under his breath as the almost remembered echo of himself said it as well. Green melted back into green as those words hung in the air, and Tucker cursed under his breath. What was even the point of…?

The next stage set itself around him, even as the thought started to form. And there he was again with his friend. There they were, another moment when the world was comparatively simpler, compared to now, compared to all the latest bullshit. Tucker reached into his memory to try and figure out just what this was, but the scene that played out was just too mangled by Caboose’s apparent telling it to Epsilon to be recognized. Hell, there wasn’t even anything that really justified the burst of four words from a remembered him. Then the scene was gone, replaced by another. And another. And another. They came in fits and starts around him, rushing one to the next ot the next until they were a meaningless blur joined by one thing and one thing alone. And then it was still again, a memory of scant minutes ago, standing before the Meta armor. 

‘Tucker, take off your helmet,’ Epsilon said as another Tucker out of the past stared at the suit. 

‘What, why?’ Tucker of not-too-long-ago, a Tucker who didn’t know he was about to lose his friend, asked. 

‘Just trust me, Tucker, and get in here…’

With that Epsilon threw himself into the armor and Tucker of then stood there and said the four, apparently magic words. 

“Bow chicka bow wow.”

Then there was nothing but him, Delta, and the brilliant white all around. For a while Tucker said nothing, just frowned at the AI. 

“What… the hell was that?” he asked at last. 

Delta shrugged a little as the desert temple reformed around them out of the white. 

_Epsilon… was not successful at keeping that which made him him from us. Not completely. So a part of him, and what he knew of you all, remain within all of us. This is what he left me, knowingly or not, of you. His dear friend._

“The worst line in the history of ever?”

There was almost, maybe, amusement in Delta’s voice when he answered. 

_Perhaps the amusement I sense with it is what he left. Either way that was the important way in which he summed you up. In Epsilon these words encapsulated you as this place encapsulates the way you understand yourself. A hero chosen by chance, blessed with love, and willing to sacrifice yourself for those you loved. Still love I assume. So this is how you see yourself, and in those four words was how he saw you. And, Lavernius Tucker, despite his best attempts to leave us nothing of himself, he found it important to leave me something of you. Do with that as you will._

Delta must have said his piece, because with that the AI was gone and Tucker stood in the middle of the hanger bay of the Staff of Charon, his sword still to Hargrove’s back, and Wash and Carolina were rushing from the Pelican.

Somehow, when a point of brilliant green light appeared at Caboose’s side and everyone else went very still, Tucker knew. He just knew. 

Time to keep moving. 

It was what Epsilon would have, had wanted for him. For them all. 

“If everyone keeps staring like that, I’m going to think you want the D. And if you do, I can show you a way more impressive one. Bow chicka bow wow.”

It’s what Epsilon would have wanted. 

He hoped.


End file.
